Old Whine, New Bottles
While we were away, Hillary Clinton finally let her vulnerable side show. We can't say we're sorry we missed it, but we're happy to join the piling on.

Oh wait, sorry. Bad Taranto! We mustn't pile on. That would be sexist. As The Politico reports:

[Mrs.] Clinton's campaign this week accused rivals of engaging in "the politics of piling on" after they roundly criticized her evasive and confusing answers at the Philadelphia event about whether illegal immigrants should be eligible for driver's licenses.

The next day, Clinton called the political world a "boys' club," and a union chief endorsed her with the observation that the debate had been "six guys against Hillary."​

According to The Politico, a "debate" is "churning in feminist circles, where some women's activists said she had every right to invoke sexism and gender stereotypes as a defense on the campaign trail--and predicted that this tactic will prove effective against fellow Democrats and against a Republican, if she is the general election nominee":

[Eleanor] Smeal said that she and other women deeply involved in politics didn't immediately see the debate in terms of gender, but rather in the political terms of rivals engaging a front-runner.

Then, she said, her group started getting e-mails from women complaining that Clinton was being attacked. "Our rank and file . . . saw it the other way," she said.

She and some other women's activists were unapologetic about Clinton's willingness to use stereotypes to her advantage.

"You reap what you sow," she said. "There's been discrimination against women for so long, and for once this is benefiting a woman."
​

But abortion advocate Kate Michelman, who only has eyes for John Edwards, disagrees:

The Edwards campaign released a statement from Michelman, accusing Clinton of "trying to have it both ways."

"At one minute, the strong woman ready to lead, the next, she's the woman under attack, disingenuously playing the victim card," Michelman said. "It is not presidential."​

The trouble with feminists is that they're so obsessed with sex. In this case, it blinds them to the point that Mrs. Clinton is simply acting like a Democratic politician. That she is female is incidental. Consider the following quotes:

* "Of course, the vice president is questioning my patriotism. I don't think there's any question about that, and I resent it. I resent it."--Michael Dukakis, Sept. 25, 1988

* "A lot of this is deliberately designed to sensationalize charges against my husband, because everything else they've tried has failed. . . . This is--the great story here for anybody willing to find it and write about it and explain it--is this vast right-wing conspiracy that has been conspiring against my husband since the day he announced for president."--Bill Clinton's wife, speaking on his behalf, Jan. 27, 1998

* "You don't have to get snippy."--Al Gore, Nov. 8, 2000

* "For the past week, they attacked my patriotism and my fitness to serve as commander in chief. We'll, here's my answer. I will not have my commitment to defend this country questioned by those who refused to serve when they could have and by those who have misled the nation into Iraq."--John Kerry, Sept. 3, 2004

* "If anyone thinks a veteran would criticize the more than 140,000 heroes serving in Iraq and not the president who got us stuck there, they're crazy. This is the classic G.O.P. playbook. I'm sick and tired of these despicable Republican attacks that always seem to come from those who never can be found to serve in war, but love to attack those who did."--John Kerry, Oct. 31, 2006
​

Male Democrats routinely do what Mrs. Clinton stands accused of doing now: pout and play the victim. There is no question that such behavior is unmanly. But it would be an outrageous sexist calumny to suggest that it is womanly. It is childish: Little boys and girls pout and play the victim. Grown men and women do not.

What about the politics of all this? Maybe it is true that women respond better to men to such childishness. Certainly they have tended to vote more Democratic than have men in recent presidential elections. Will a woman's playing the victim qua woman resonate even more with female voters than, say, Dukakis's or Kerry's crying over wounded patriotism? Perhaps. On the other hand, men vote too, and it also seems possible that they will find Mrs. Clinton's bellyaching especially off-putting.

There is another danger for Mrs. Clinton in all this. Her great advantage in the Democratic field is that she is the only one of the top candidates who comes across as a grown-up. Barack Obama seems like a bright young man who may do great things when he grows up. John Edwards is Peter Pan, Esq.

Being a woman sets Mrs. Clinton apart from the boys. Whining like a girl reduces her to their level.

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